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KSU Double-Crop Sunflower Budget
Monday, February 1, 2010
filed under: Planting Systems
Kansas State University has recently published an updated budget guide for double-crop sunflower in central and eastern Kansas. The farm management guide (MF-2145) was authored by ag economist Daniel O’Brien and Stewart Duncan, KSU extension crops and soils specialist.
The budget is based on double-crop oil-type sunflower production using a no-till system. The estimated budgets include three different yield levels — 800 lbs/ac, 1,000 lbs and 1,200 lbs. While a number of Kansas double-crop producers have exceeded these levels, these three “are intended to represent expected yields of land of varying quality for a given level of management,” note the authors.
Land values and government payments are excluded from the double-crop budgets, as they should be accounted for in the primary crop, says O’Brien and Duncan. So the double-crop ’flowers “can be analyzed simply on the basis of crop income minus non-land production costs.”
The market price used ($16.32/cwt) represented an expected harvest price at the processing plant (ADM/Northern Sun) at Goodland, Kan, accounting for government marketing loan price support level. A transportation cost of $1.25 per mile was used to cover the approximate 300-mile trip to Goodland from the eastern Kansas area.
Crop insurance was not included as an input expense in the budget.
The budget includes both pre-crop and in-crop herbicide treatments and one insecticide application. Seed drop used is 22,000 per acre for all three yield levels.
Fertilizer costs naturally vary, depending on the projected yield level.
To download this double-crop cost-return budget, as well as current full-season sunflower budgets for various regions of Kansas, go to "www.ksre.ksu.edu/library. Under “Crops,” click on “Sunflower.”